The Apex Prophecy

 

Back in the age when Apex Legacy was very much still the doe-eyed fresh kid on the block trying to prove himself in the rough-and-tumble market of Battle Royale games, I was actually one of the early adopters happy to see a title with a bit of quality in the field that didn't subdue it's main focus under an obnoxious building mechanic. (I have nothing personally against Fortnite's building, I just never had the patience to get half decent at it.) Apex Legends looked great, felt better and glittered with that special spark of promise very few stars in the sky can muster- it was a game that felt like it was going somewhere in a style of online titles that was already edging toward oversaturation even back then. Somehow everyone could tell this would the type of game to float to the top of the pack and stick around for a while. Did I know it would be this much of a contender? No. But I did have an experience with Apex that not only knocked me out of the stupor this game presents, but gave me a crystal clear picture of the legacy the game was headed towards. Let me call it the... Apex Prophecy.

I am of course referring to the early days of the game where the bare basic game was still keeping enough of us hooked to be curious and inquisitive about upcoming content. We had not reached that point of the Live Service lifecycle wherein the fanbase are so starved that they gobble up any and all content without so much as a second thought- we still had some vague sense resembling 'self respect' left over for ourselves. Whatever that's worth. And it was in this very volatile window of the game's life cycle that the development made their first, and in my case their only, mistake. It the event through which Apex attempted to differentiate it's fresh Season 2 events from the largely forgotten Season 1 "Legendary Hunt" event which no one for the life of them can remember.

"The Iron Crown" Which I'm pretty sure is also the name of a Paradox Pokémon from Gen 9, threw up players against the endgame of events: a series of limited time collectables wherein the top most reward was not wrapped in a challenge of skill, but monetary devotion. You had to overcome the pitfalls of sensible budgeting and sink at least £147 into microtransaction lootboxes in order to get the honour of wielding... an axe skin. That's all it was, a skin for your axe. It looked pretty, kinda. But £150 worth of pretty? (Nah.) That was where I got off the Apex train. I saw what the team thought of their player base and how they wanted to point the direction of this game, heard their pretty pitiful apology wherein the team threw up their shoulders and went "Whoopsie- that was a goof!" and bid the Legend farewell as I rode off into the Sunset.

At the time I really did think a controversy like that, so early into Apex's career, would be detrimental to the growth of the game. I wrote about as much on my blog covering the topic all that time ago. But if that were the case then none of us would be here right now- would we? Apex was just so solid of a game underneath that veneer of exploitation that people gauged their options and went "Where else am I gonna get an experience like this?" Which pretty much lands this title into that ever enviable role of 'too big to fail'. And you know what happens to franchises that land there, don't you? They start releasing absolute trash with a vague precursory glance at potential problems in the knowledge that as long as they somewhat redeem themselves the next time around by putting a little bit more effort in, the mark won't go down in their permanent record. This cycle forms the basis of the Apex Prophecy.

What should validate my paranoia more than hearing about their latest grift attempt in collaboration with Square Enix to try and cross promote Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth- otherwise known as 'The Game where Cloud will get an emotion'. What could possibly go wrong there? I mean, Square even had their own Battle Royale based on the Final Fantasy 7 property for a few months before it inevitably petered out and was shut down, so they should understand the ecosystem a bit. Just throw together a few skins that people can grind towards in some sort of event and maybe tie in some of the big, character morphing, skins to the cosmetic store for a reasonable price. There you go, cross promotion done, I just saved you the entire marketing team's budget, Square- you're welcome. But... of course that's all just too bloody easy, now isn't it?

As covered and broken down by incensed fans, slightly tired of having to go through this every other month, the spread of awards are tied up so insidiously to the monetary packs that this could very well be the most expensive event in Apex history. Which is just a great way to celebrate such a financially lucrative advertising opportunity within their platform, right? By taking those earnings and then demanding more earnings from their users! The top most heirloom of this event requires the collection of 36 paid cosmetics under it- each of which require purchasing a box with a standard price of $16. As lovely as I'm sure that sounds to folks out there. Now there will be a few freebies handed out, some given as challenge rewards, but you're crazy if you think there's anyway to unlock everything without spending at least triple digits on the game.

And here's the thing- the cosmetic aren't even good! Just taking a glance over at the various character themed outfits that have been doled out, based on the various members of the FF7R cast, what the Apex team have made of these skins is honestly shameful! I understand that there's a certain balance to be struck between the style of Final Fantasy and that of Apex, and this franchise has a slightly glimmer of integrity to not just shove any old model that's easily rendered into their game- (Like Fortnite would have) but there has to be a point at which the compromise is just so ugly you go for a redesign! At the very least, if things are this bad, stick masks on the characters so you don't fumble about trying to match aesthetics quite so desperately.

Those with the money to spend will of course blaze through everything and nail the one-of-a-kind 'One Winged Angel' themed Deathbox, and I will indeed snatch up my bragging rights for knowing this would be the direction that Apex would end up going all the way back when I wrote my first blog on their event skiving. Because there's nothing more 'fun' then seeing your free-to-play game slowly divvy up it's base between the overly funded and the casual pleasure players- that's never led to any conflicts within the playerbase ever before, now has it? Then again, I guess Apex had lasted long enough to sweat out all the normal players by this point- now they are just milking the addicted who are too invested in the grind to even realise other games have come out in the years since Apex ruled. 

Jedi Survivor: "Shouldn't be sold?"

 The dark side is strong in this one

So the follow-up to the ever-anticipated singlular Star Wars game we're getting for the next two years, has finally been released; and given the delay-into-oblivion that KOTOR got- Jedi Survivor could very be all I have to fill the void in my heart for the Galaxy Far Far Away before I'm too old to get excited for this flagging franchise anymore. A sobering thought, but a realistic one given that EA and Disney have, between them, been squeezing this franchise to it's absolute breaking point in two of it's key-most demographics. The shows are been completely scatter-shot in quality, the movies have been announced and cancelled so often they've entered the common life cycle of a Twitter denizen and the games have been run so thin we're lucky to get a release of a new, quality, Star Wars game once every half decade- whereas once upon a time we could expect at least one good release every year. Which is why it's such a pain whenever anything isn't up to snuff with the few Star Wars games we do get.

The last Jedi game featuring Cal Kestis was itself a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! A souls-like action adventure story driven tale that did not itself attempt to break narrative grounds but provided a very solid story with a likable protagonist and decent combat that felt easy to pick up with some complex nuance to try and master on the flip-side. It was by all accounts a great game and one that I personally felt was scratching on the surface of being a masterpiece with just a few forward steps in innovation and perhaps a step-up in funding and development time. Given the success of the last game I figure that the funding wish definitely got fulfilled, but I can't be the only one who was surprised how quickly this new follow up game was announced and then quickly pushed out.

And that quite ignoble and pedestrian verbiage I've coined there with 'pushed out' might be closer to the bone than the devs want to admit; because by all accounts it seems that Jedi Survivor as it currently exists is not a finished product. That is to say, the content of the game is done and people who can abide by the roughness call it better than good- their accounts imply we may have reached close to that 'masterpiece' standard I dreamt about, but that ideal is weighed down by the ten-ton weights of the somewhat insane degree of technical issues surrounding the way the game actually plays. It's not that the game is somewhat rough around the edges for certain systems, itself a pretty unacceptable standard but shamefully common in modern game development, it's that this game is seemingly unoptimized for all systems. Even console players need to persist with the uglier face of the game if they want to enjoy their time.

Although by all reports, the PC game is where the title really bears its full backside for all to grimace at. It runs poorly, there are consistent freezes at danger points in the game, button prompts sometimes don't function if you plug in a controller, arrow keys can't be used for movement (apparently that's an intentional omission for some reason), the souls-like mechanic of getting back experience doesn't always function, triggers don't function, players get stuck- the game just doesn't seem to run smoothly for anyone of any hardware benchmark. This isn't just a case of 'new game makes old computers cry'- experts on these sort of matter over at Digital Foundry seem convinced that the software itself has deep problems that can only really be avoided with luck- the real responsibility for fixing can only fall on the software providers themselves. EA and Respawn has some patch-work they need to get started on!

Of course, before getting started on that work you might think it something of a public service for Respawn to deliver something to it's customers. You know, like some sort of 'apology' or 'recompense' for delivering a pathetically buggy mess under a full price tag on launch and expecting that to fly? And indeed Respawn did reach out... to down play the whole situation with a painfully underhanded Twitter post. Apparently despite Digital Foundry's very well laid out article detailing the universal problems effecting the performance of this game from a fundamental level- Respawn consider these niche issues effecting a 'percentage of players' specially those with 'high end PCs' or 'Specific settings'. Do you hear that? It's the sound of cowards passing the blame wherever they think it'll stick.

Seriously, it's actually a little bit insulting that they not only refused to apologise for the game, but subtly passed on the excuse to some vague 'specific settings' and 'high end systems'- whilst simultaneously ignoring the issues that console players are having with performance too. The PC is definitely getting the worst end of this crappy stick, but they aren't even an entity in EA's mind right now. Also, I'm pretty sure that those with the 'high end systems' in question are the only people getting even passing frame-rates out of this game, everyone else is getting served low 20's and 10's with repeated freezing as garnish. But I guess we lower end PC owners are, yet again, not real people in the eyes of the developers. Sometimes a simple foot-in-mouth response is more aggravating than total radio silence, all publicity is not, in fact, good publicity. At least some work is being done on the game to make it a fully viable sellable product at some point in the, perhaps distant, future. 

But this is the precedent we've accepted and lauded for ourselves, isn't it? A precedent where a game like this clearly isn't done, but 'polish' wasn't listed down on the scroll of 'Minimum Viable Product'. To the eyes of EA- as long as the executable activated, that was good enough to ship, and the consequence has been the reputation of this title. Like I've said, those who've stuck it out report that this game plays increadibly, surpassing it's predecessor, but only whilst squinting through the fiery mess of performance around it. And that chaos is overshadowing all the hard work from the talented devs and artists who made the content of the game- tainting the entire product's legacy. Heck, I was going to be a week one buyer of this game but now I've thinking I'm better off getting around to Resident Evil 4 whilst Respawn get their patches on straight- I wonder how many other prospective customers they lost in similar fashion.

So here we are, one of the biggest releases of the year is already being sized up as a disappointment-of-the-year for reasons totally unrelated to everything we should be focusing on when it comes to assessing games. But no matter how often these situations arise, and how often people lambast developers for allowing it to happen, there's always another 'Jedi Survivor' around the corner. We can punish these companies again and again but still the EA's of the world will fire half-born abominations and throw up the confused John Travolta meme when the Internet gets upset. Welcome back to the world of AAA gaming everybody, I hope the one or two quality launches we've seen this year didn't fool you into thinking standards were rising. 'Cause they ain't!

Jedi Survivor intrigues me...

 And worries me...

I still remember well the days when we could expect a brand new Star Wars game at least once every year thanks to the decently accepting licences that Lucas Arts maintained, before the bad days of 'The Disney Occupancy'. In that time it didn't matter for a gamer if the Star Wars franchise was putting out a new movie, because we could create our own games in our heads with the countless dozens of pieces of media surrounding the space opera and the magic space wizards. Which of course means that I remember how jarring a time it was when no new Stars Wars media was being created whatsoever, leaving us hopefuls waiting in the dust for anything new. For the single player fans, it really wasn't until the 'Star Wars: Jedi' series that we had anything to hold onto. (So thanks for that EA!)

But what a wait it was, because 'Fallen Order' has to be one of my favourite action adventure games of the past generation for how well it handled fun-feeling combat, exploration puzzles and great stand-out set-piece moments: I really do see how the gaming public managed to latch themselves onto this game as their Star Wars trilogy. Personally, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually infused by the direction of the narrative and where they're going to take the story next to make Cal Kestis' survival throughout the age of the Jedi purge relevant in the grand scope of Star Wars storytelling. The narrative of an action adventure game has my attention- that's how you know these devs have crafted something special here to work on across the next decade.

Of course, with that attention to narrative comes a cast of characters I'm seriously excited to get to know more about. One of my only real hang-ups with the Fallen Order story was the fact that because Cal and Cere got the majority of the attention, side characters tended to just be around. I feel like we only scratched the surface of characters like Dreez and Merrin; both of which have the opportunity to really take centre stage a little more now that they've been set loose on the universe to be their own people. It even looks like Merrin may be becoming something of a late-life Jedi Padawan from some of the early footage we've seen, which would place her at a central point in the narrative moving forward as we explore this new rebel shootoff of the Jedi.

And the real reason I want more games to come out of this franchise; is to expand the world of modern Star Wars outside of the excessive constrained, and actually somewhat boring, scope of what Disney have been messing around with. Even their purported far-shoot from the main timeline, the High Republic, hasn't yet got that star power entry of this is must-watch content; leaving those bored with the events of the Skywalker sage feeling burnt out. Even the Mandalorian managed to tie in the Skywalkers- only Andor and the 'Star Wars: Jedi' series are interested expanding out the lore in any distinct and interesting direction; so I hold onto both of them like lightning rods keeping this franchise from becoming stale. Just as with Harry Potter, I want the property to outgrow the owners and become it's own thing; that's how media becomes evergreen.

But with my anticipation comes a considerable amount of trepidation, because with the greatest expectations comes hand-in-hand the greatest potential for a fall from grace. The higher the pedestal, the more gruesome the splat at the bottom end. One such issue I have would be related to the God of War problem, namely that I wonder if this franchise had given itself enough time between entries to really formulate new ideas or if it's just recycling more of the same but in a bigger prettier package. God of War was said to be a near perfect game, so people accepted it when that game's sequel didn't go in any great strides to push the game formula forward, but I for one will say that Jedi Fallen Order had some weak points that could have done with some touch-ups. I just hope the team aren't resting on the laurels of what they had already made.

For one I think that the boss fights of 'Jedi: Fallen Order', at least those on the critical path, were largely just ok- with one stand-out exception being the tree-top duel with the Seventh Sister. That fight alone had several stages, attack-switch ups, variant timing and all that great stuff witch makes a challenging and memorable Souls-like duel. Compared to her, even the final boss fight is disappointingly straight-forward and generic- even for all of the pomp and grandeur around the setting of those later fights. I need the main-line fights to respect life-bar stages going forward, to keep the fight feeling dynamic and ever shifting, and perhaps to include more creative elements akin to what Sekiro does- tying specific actions to solve certain fights. Imagine if 'Jedi Survivor' pulls off a fight with the scope and versatility of the 'Divine Dragon'; that would be a heart stopper moment!

And one last worry point, it's the amount of new characters that we're going to see out of Jedi Survivor. Rather than keep the team together as they were at the end of 'Fallen Order', 'Survivor' has scattered them to the wind and given the players a new set of friends to become familiar with. But as I mentioned, I still think there's considerable growing the base team still has yet to do. It's not like Mass Effect where every crew mate has enough character building to be chucked out into the wild and still be legends in their own right, I genuinely think that certain crewmates from the first game were still in their foetal stage of narrative progression, and I wonder if we'll feel like we've missed them growing up in the jarring transition from where they had just started blooming to where they've already fully blossomed in the modern world.

But my concerns and worries are brought out of a place of love. Love for this franchise and the development studio that didn't forget about the sizable amount of Star Wars fans that just don't get the same thrill out of online games that they do from fantastic single player masterpieces. I just want this trilogy of Star Wars games to be absolutely perfect and satisfying in the way that the recent trilogy of Star Wars movies just wasn't, and if I even catch a whiff of problems I'm going to hunt it down like a bloodhound. But I was just as sceptical of that first game when it first reared it's atypical head, and I'll likely be just as weary of the third game when it's around that time; I guess I'll never miss a chance to be pleasantly surprised by a game that ultimately outperforms my expectations. So go ahead, Respawn: Outperform! 

Am I Ludonarrative dissonance?

 No, Brother. We are Ludonarrative- and dissonant!

Never teach a big word to a community of pseudo-intellectuals, you'll just be feeding fuel to their narcissism-engine. Just like with any term or concept, the very second that the term starts to float around the snotty-nosed of the industry it melts into the vernacular of the common tongue, thrown about with as much pretentious gusto as a Latin major loves to regurgitate pithy witticism in a dead tongue. The very term of 'Ludonarrative dissonance' itself is a 2007 coined phrase that just squeezes down a lengthy concept that every one who plays games is already decently familiar with; but of course with simplifications eventually comes the dissolution of the original meaning, tainting the original purpose. Suddenly if you want to critique anything that slightly relates to the idea, you're throwing the shiny word about like a club, killing any potential dialogue with a rambunctious play at intellectual superiority.

So in terms of a laymen, like myself; what the heck is Ludonarrative dissonance? Well it's fairly simple if you break it down. Ludus, Latin for 'Play'- Hideo Kojima traced the same etymology on his 'Ludens' mascot for Kojima Productions. Narrative- relation to the story. And 'Dissonance'; indicating a conflict which prevents the two sides from meeting. 'Ludonarrative dissonance' thus refers to inconsistencies between the gameplay and storytelling of a video game which creates an environment where one aspect doesn't quite compliment or shake hands with the other. The example which is always used is a game wherein you play a snappy wise-cracking happy-go-lucky hero man, like 'Uncharted', only to end up driven to acts of mass murder and gunfights throughout the gameplay which should, if we're being real here, probably have some sort of psychological effect on the witty man. Or at the very least prelude to some sort of latent psychopathy that the game has yet to explore. Hence the dissonance.

It is a common 'problem', if you choose to perceive it as such, but in practise the very ideal of ludonarrative dissonance only drives a wedge into total story immersion in truly egregious circumstances. The cast of Grand Theft Auto V, for example, may be largely level-headed and non-psychotic before the player gets ahold of them; (or rather, 2/3 of them are non-psychotic) but the game itself doesn't force players to act like crazy people, those are choices made by the player in their own free time. This could still be seen as an example of ludonarrative dissonance, of course, but in a more minor fashion and only on a very surface level if you choose not to really examine the characters you play as. Because in general Rockstar are actually very proficient at writing their characters smothered in so many flaws and hypocritical moral compunctions that there's very few of them you can picture accidentally running over a whole side walk and not managing to twist the incident in their heads into not making them the worst person in the world through tortured perspectives. I think John Marston from Red Dead Redemption 1 is perhaps the only character lacking in the hypocritical shield that protects him from potential 'dissonance', because his whole story is designed to be his redemption journey from the thug he was into a reformed avenging angel literally killing his past to make up for it. Yet still the player could go nuts and murder a whole covenant of nuns. (Not that I ever did that. My dad on the otherhand...)

Most of the examples that I do see bought up as poster-children for this concept quite often rub me the wrong way too. The new Tomb Raider games are apparently a beacon for 'Ludonarrative Dissonance' accusations, despite the fact that these games are specifically written to address this side of the storytelling. Lara is put up against hardships that we follow her with throughout the first act, from being shipwrecked on an island, pulling jagged rocks out of her stomach and being forced to kill a deer for sustenance leading up to the first moment she has to actually kill someone in a desperate struggle for self defence. The game does as good of a job as it can, without sacrificing momentum of the plot, to portray the 'hardening' of Lara to justify the intense combat she is thrown up against later, and the writers even touch on the psychological scars of that entire game in the prelude to the next one, which is more than most any other game out there even thinks to do. But perhaps that's just not enough for some critics who waggle their fingers at the fact that Lara doesn't burst down into vomitus tears after every combat encounter, as she tries to weigh up the value of her own life against that of the murderous pirate rapists that she's killing. (Maybe that would be their ideal 'Ludonarrative synch up' game!)

Doing the best to balance the wants of the game and the wants of the narrative is how one deftly combats both sides of this ludonarrative issue; and yes, perhaps the equation does not always line up in a perfectly neat bow where we see a perfect psychological breakdown, medically vetted, detailing how Lara enters the mental state of being ready to kill her way to survival. But the groundwork is laid there, Crystal Dynamics did provide a narrative of the 'hardening' of Lara to justify the lives she takes, and it's a bit galling for one of the only games that really tries to be narratively aware get dragged down and disparaged as the poster child for wanton narrative dissonance. It's as if the attempt itself is what makes them a target of questionable dissemination from the types of people who only kinda get what the concept means and is looking for a example case they don't have to think too hard about. It's screwed up.

Another curiosity I saw, rather recently in fact, was the conflation of video-game scaled narrative accomplishment as itself a dinner bell for the 'ludonarrative dissonance' sharks. Specifically I saw the argument that Cal Kestis, protagonist of 'Jedi: Fallen Order', is a posterboy for this sort of dissonant story writing because of the fact that Cal refers to himself as a 'good guy Jedi' despite killing hundreds of Stormtroopers throughout the course of the game. Now, this one I really had to scratch my head at, because as far as I'm aware within the wider lore of every Star Wars film and comic I've ever read, it's never been considered morally dubious or questionable to kill a Stormtrooper. The fascistic military tyrants placing their boot on the throat of the Galaxy? No, they've happily and handily been slain by ordinary people, rebel outfits and Jedi Knights (do try and remember that Jedi serve as actual 'Knights' in the galaxy, not pacifistic 'Air Bender' monks) all the time without the question of if someone is still a 'good person' on the otherend.

Which means the only distinction between how the movies and books depict actions and how the game depicts them, is the scaling of just how many Stormtroopers Cal slays through the natural act of scaling that video games, as a much longer form of entertainment, are beholden to commit to. Cal has probably on-screen murdered more Stormtroopers than any other character in the films or TV aside from, perhaps, Luke Skywalker when he blew up the Death Star. So does that scale in itself invite in questions of moral cracking, enough to summon accusations of 'ludonarrative dissonance'? This speaks again to my prevailing theme of the disintegrating meaning of the term as it's passed from pseudointellectuals making bad examples to causal luddites extrapolating upon misnomers. As the commonly held general belief is that killing is wrong, the umbrella application of that general standard confers wrongdoing into all forms of fiction, regardless of context, twisting all killing into an equal unjustifiable 'murders'. Thus, through the inevitable scale of accomplishment in near all video games, this perspective should turn every video game protagonist into a mass murderer. Thus any game where you don't play as a mass murderer is ludonarratively dissonant, right?

I hope you can start to see the fallacy in this way of characterising what was original coined as a pithy summation of wanting narrative trends in evaluation of Bioshock, one of the most narratively confronting games that had existed in gaming up to that point. Bioshock, a game which went out of it's way to ask you, the player, why is it that you do the things you do. It's fitting then, that a opinion on the game should coin a term about the examination between gameplay and context, but sad that the meaning and relevance of that discussion would become watered down and meaningless over the years. Consider this my application in the 'stop using Ludonarrative Dissonance freely without understanding it's meaning' defence fund. And maybe, if you have a point that only sounds firm if you phrase it with big compound words that sound impressive on their own, maybe your point isn't so firm as you think. Maybe you should analyse the context a little harder- lest you start falling victim to Fabulanarrative Dissonance! 

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is real

 Tick off another one

What has been foretold has come to pass and the game with the title that we've heard testimony from certain Game's industry reporters is meant to be 'sick' has been announced but a few weeks after it was first leaked. And my very first raw reaction to the thing? 'Jedi: Survivor'? I don't know, it doesn't really sound all that imaginative to me. 'Fallen Order' was a mouthful but at least it was original. That was a name you said and instantly knew what you were talking about, but 'Survivor'? Seems generic, pastiche, uninspired. Why not call the game 'Star Wars: Fallen Order the Sequel game'? Fantastic Beasts taught us that the more of a mouthful you make the title the easier it is for the audience to forgive any narrative pitfalls you unintentionally stumble into. Well, I suppose from that logic a title as bear and unstriking as 'Survivor' is actually a statement of supreme confidence from Respawn in their ability to make this another smash hit game. They're going to make us associate the word 'Survivor' specifically with the tribulations of Cal Kestis. I can respect that Hussle.

When 'Fallen Order' first landed it became something of a hit, and though I was reluctant to try the game out for myself personally, I happened upon some content creator who likened the gameplay to a Souls-like and from that point onward my fate towards buying the game was pretty much laid out in rubble before me. And you know what? They were right! 'Fallen Order' was the first mainstream Souls-like that the world was introduced to. Call it baby steps towards the knock-out-punch-to-come when Elden Ring swept the world like a wildfire, burning up the sales charts on it's march toward total industry dominance for a time. And my what a good fit the Souls-Like formula was for a Star Wars game. Parries, Dodges, timings and flourishes; all balanced and pulled out at the exact perfect moment to score an important tip of damage before retreating back into the dance of reaction.

My general opinion of Fallen Order coming away from it, aside from what I opined in this review, was that the game hit greatness from the collaboration of some many good parts, rather than one single excelling system or design element. The combat was good and functional if not exactly revolutionary to it's own field, the storyline was good and introspective if not exactly ambitious or challenging, the world design was good and sprawling if not exactly as perfectly tipped between function and playability like some of the better Souls-games are. But when you go that far without making any big mistakes, the general competence rises all ships, and it creates hope for the future that with that solid baseline the very next game could be a revolutionary triumph now that you've the breadth to take risks. Is Survivor going to be that risk?

I've often believed that if FromSoft had made Fallen Order it would have been a masterpiece, and that's not due to some cultish reverence I have for my gothic overlords, but rather for a clear understanding in their ability to balance gameplay diversity just to the point where the average player doesn't become bored. If they had made the game, there wouldn't have been nearly as many stretches filled with canon fodder Stormtroopers, but more mixes of varied trash mob variations. There would have been more bosses, including ones that more closely resembled the variation of the Ninth Sister battle, which I still maintain was the highlight fight of the game. And maybe they would have even had the courage to do something a tad more ambitious with the narrative other than 'intergalactic scavenger hunt number 5'. Knights of the Old Republic did something but they had a twist at the fifth inning to make all the traipsing and trudging without explicit drive worth it. Alongside meaningful side quests you had to actively interact with instead of Fallen Order's side narratives which just sort of fill themselves in as you go about your own business on each planet.

What does Survivor explicitly promise us so far? Well for one we can look at this rather upsettingly sparse teaser trailer and conclude that he with one of the most regularly changing faces in the franchise is coming into the fray, The Grand Inquisitor. (Seriously, after his appearance in the cartoons, then Kenobi, and now Jedi: Survivor, all featuring distinctly different general head shapes, this guy is shaping up to be Star Wars' Chris Redfield.) I like the idea of upping the threat to the big bad of the Inquisitors rather than harping on about it being Darth Vader, a threat we know for a fact that Cal cannot even fight, let alone beat. However The Grand Inquisitor is also an enemy that Cal can't beat, isn't he? He was famously killed by Darth Maul. (At least by Darth Maul if recent news stories are to be believed...) This just makes me all the more confused why Respawn didn't keep Trilla around to be an overarching threat for their trilogy. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

Apart from that our little teaser appears to give us absolutely nothing to go on whatsoever. We see Cal Kestis cross blades with, and seemingly lose to, the Grand Inquisitor; watch as his Saber is made a trophy and Cal finds some corpse in a Bacta tank to stare out. Ripe ground for theory fodder perhaps, but is this really the sort of series, or franchise for that matter, with the sort of narrative richness or esoteric structure to warrant serious theory crafting? I know that a teaser trailer is supposed to do exactly that, tease; but when you're making a video game teaser surely there has to be other standards than a movie trailer. Showing us various vague scenes for a sequel everyone knew was coming isn't going to set the world on fire, give us a reveal of some sort, or perhaps even a single snippet of gameplay we haven't see before! A cool looking boss, a brand new world; anything of actual substance so that this trailer is somewhat worthy of existing as more than just a title announcement. 

But I'm not a total bore, I am capable of feeling excitement and when considering what Respawn accomplished with the first game it only stands to reason that this sequel would up the stakes. Although that doesn't mean they're going to go the distance they need to. I wonder about what we're going to get this time around, both from a story and gameplay perspective. The 'lost your lightsaber' plot point might just be for the teaser, but I suspect that's going to be the convenient explanation for losing your power level, alongside the ability to switch from a single blade to a dual blade. The companions we've already made could have a bigger purpose in the gameplay, either with them being actual AI allies in some of the battles (Which would definitely be the more difficult route to pull off well in a Souls-like framework) or maybe actual playable characters themselves! I think some developed side quests could be cool; maybe even deeper side areas with cool optional mega bosses, similar to Dark Souls. Basically I want more of everything, that would be fine.

What I'm not really fussed about is the story and Cal's journey. Kestis stopped being interesting to me as soon as he came to grips with his survivor's guilt because that was the only really compelling aspect of his character, aside from light-hearted ribbing with his droid pal. Is a sequel a perfect chance to add in some new depth to his character? Certainly. But I can't drive up the hype engine based on what might be achieved and heights the developers could reach. Maybe my scepticism spawns from my long-running lack of trust for Respawn's other current series right now, but whether it's justified or not I'm not falling over myself for this sparse teaser just yet. (Wait until they give us a snippet of gameplay.) But at the end of the day even if Respawn do literally just give us more of Fallen Order with nothing new mixed into the formula; that'll still be worth the price of commission for a single playthrough at the very least.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order review

Trust only in the Force

Yea, I'd had the good fortune to have finally finished Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order on Jedi Master difficulty, the Respawn single player Star Wars game that was cited to be the new hope for EA single player titles everywhere. This was the game that felt designed specifically to counter EA's foolish mandate, from a few years prior, that 'single player is dead' and how the world needs to wake up and line EA's pockets quicker. Respawn, besides their quality multiplayer modes and titles, have always been unsung heroes of the single player genre, so their attempt to step up to the plate and make a single player title drew the attention of a few folk, and once these folk then learnt that the game would be a Star Wars game? Phew, anticipation flew off the damn roof. People were beside themselves as they learnt more and more about this game. "It was going to follow a Jedi in the wake of Order 66? Between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope? Sign me up!" Only the most cautious of the community, like myself, knew what it was liked to be burned by the big E and weren't exactly clamouring for this game with it's straightforward-looking combat, overuse of familiar universe locations and generic looking protago- oh wait, he's modelled after a real person who actually looks like that? I take that last point back. Now after picking up the game for Steam and going through a complete playthrough to put my theories of mediocrity to the test I can confidently say- I was absolutely wrong, this game slaps. 

And yet I must start with a compliant, because of course I must, but this one is aimed at neither the game itself nor Respawn. EA, I bought this game off of Steam using Steam money, so if that is the case, why in the 9 hells did I have to download and run Origin everytime I wanted to play the thing? I have to go through two launchers? Are you high? Is this your way of spiting at the community because no one could stand your ugly (and poorly coded) Origin Launcher and thus wouldn't buy your PC launcher exclusives until you bit the bullet and opened them up to other storefronts? Now everyone has to download your crap and try to be happy about it? Very classy. It even makes it so that everytime you earn an achievement you have to see two separate pop-ups celebrating your good fortune. One from Origin and one from Steam. Needless to say, I hate it and everyone who thought it was a good idea. You already got my money EA, why do you need my patience too?

Good, now that's out of the way let's start talking about the game that everyone calls the Dark Souls of Star Wars games. And whilst that may sound like lazy game journalist speak, it's actually rather apt this time around because Respawn were clearly, nakedly, inspired by Miyazaki's masterpiece series when they put this game together. The raw gameplay, whilst linear, features our Jedi Hero travelling from pre-placed 'meditation spots', whereupon they can spend skillpoints amassed from combat and from which they respawn upon death. Speaking of death- when you die all the progress you made toward the next skillpoint is lost and can be reclaimed from hurting the monster who felled you. (Or by touching a Force Cloud left behind if you died by non-creature means) It's a clear and obvious attempt to do some light Dark Souls parody mechanics and benefit from that style of game design. Once the level design starts to open up into a semi free-roam affair with Metroid-Vania style stopgaps, you really start to feel the heart of the Dark Soul laid upon this game and it really fits well.

But Dark Souls was by no means the only Miyazaki inspiration, because when we go to the raw combat, which looked deceptively straightforward in the previews; there's undoubtedly some Sekiro tucked away there. Born out of a desire to make the Lightsaber feel as deadly as it should, Respawn had it so that most grunt enemies either go down instantly or with little effort at all, making the player feel strong, but with little shades of skill behind the act so that players feel like they're achieving something too. Parrying is the name of the game here, and most every fight will, at-some-point, expect you to wait for the last possible second before tapping the block button and changing the tide of the battle. (They only have you press block, unlike Dark Souls which makes you perform a parrying move that, should you miss, leaves you completely open to attack. Again- Dark Souls lite) Sure, you can just block that laser bolt heading for you, but if you parry then that bolt will head right back to the sender; you can see the appeal of playing just that tiny-bit more dangerously.

Also familiar to Sekiro fans would be the stagger system which operates much as it sounds. Evert time someone blocks a blow, a bar fills up below their health bar which, once full, staggers the opponent and leaves them open to attack. (Such is the same with protagonist Cal Kestis too) This comes into effect in a small way with Stun-baton wielding Stormtroopers in the early game and expands with the talented Purge Troopers as you get further in. By the actual boss fights you might find yourself relying on the Stagger system as a primary source of getting in that damage opportunity, which is where the game can sort of remind you of that Sekiro aggression. However, as is becoming the theme, the system is nowhere near as hardcore and it's pretty plausible to take out most enemies without worrying about stagger-bars for them or yourself, same with the parrying. They're more just flavour mechanics to make the combat more interesting, instead of more complex and challenging. Which is certainly appealing to some players, but for others they might see it as a loss in potential for what we might have seen where the team allowed to go all out.

Another huge part of any Star Wars game is going to be the way they handle Force powers, and Jedi Fallen Order does a fantastic job of giving players access to the iconic abilities we all love (Force push, Force Pull, Force double jump) and makes them usual in both utility situations and combat ones. You may use Force pull during the exploration sections to pull a rope towards you that would otherwise be just out of your reach, and you might use it to yank an enemy from the ranks and into your waiting Saber. It demonstrates a distinct understanding of the Metroidvania inspirations and promises those that are looking for that sort of progression in their games the 3D AAA equivalent. I still find myself disquiet with the system for one key reason; the way they turn it into a resource. When exploring, the font of your Force abilities is bottomless and you can use them to your heart's content; as it should be, but when in combat, suddenly your Force hits a limited pool. (Fair enough, they wanted the Force to be powerful and so they cut you off; basic balancing) 

What gets me is that the resource pool can only be replenished by doing damage and actually drains from getting damaged, making it feel like special move heat-points rather than a integral part of the combat. (Dishonored had a similar problem with it's powers and switched to a semi-refill system in Dishonored 2) Consequently, you'll often be conserving force abilities more than you should need to even when they're designed to be played around with. Making your Force regenerate would require a full rebalancing of the game, no doubt, but it would also make players more inclined to experiment during combat and see just how robust and dynamic some of these powers can make things. (The first time I realised that I could force push a commando's grenade right back in his face I had a field day doing it; no one should miss out on those moments because they aren't encouraged to experiment.)

Of course, all of these combat mechanics and special powers are only really worth a damn if you have the enemies there to try them out on; and they should preferably be a mixed bag of fellows that encourage tactile actions and switching up of approach. Luckily the enemy composition of Jedi Fallen Order is actually quite solid. Between the Fauna of the planets you'll be exploring and the various ranks of Stormtroopers you'll be cutting down there's a great pool of variety which nudges the player to change things up without throwing up a wall and demanding they attack this enemy in this specific way. Most everyone dies by being stabbed enough, and there's no real right way to go about that, but some might require clever dodging on your part in order to get to that vulnerable moment, or maybe you'll be hit with a squad of enemies such that finagling that perfect opportunity takes a little active planning. It's still casual at it's heart, but intuitive and engaging in a way that will easily keep the invested and dedicated on their toes if they want to start getting flashy with their fights. By the end of the game, they'll be some actually challenging hordes thrown your way that might just have you expending all of your clever tactics and techniques to depletion.

Progression is handled much as you'd expect from a RPG-lite Star Wars game with Souls-like aspirations, Skill points are spent on a skill tree to get new powers or buff up the health bar and force meter. None, save for perhaps 2 choices, significantly changes up the standard flow of combat, and so most of these skills are extra little abilities to spice things up. I might have preferred skills that alter gameplay a little more, such as one that might regenerate health from doing damage, thus encouraging more aggressive play, although it's clear these skills aren't designed to encourage 'builds' as much as they're meant to visually represent Cal's journey to becoming a proper and powerful Jedi. A new lightsaber technique is added throughout the game, which adds some scant variety to how you handle situations, but with the casual-nature of enemy compositions you'll still find yourself picking your favourite style and just sticking to it. Oh and on a specific, and slightly spoilery note, the split blade technique you learn in the final third of the game absolutely ruined me. Firstly, it's a special move instead of a style and thus uses up Force power, for some reason. Secondly, the key binding activates whenever you try to attack with your guard up. Did no one on the team posit the theory that people might accidently activate that given how for the entire rest of the game doing that combination of buttons would merely cancel the guard and go into a standard, non force-depleting, attack? The amount of misclicks I did with that style damn near drove me insane.

Puzzles are another big part of this game for some reason, borrowing the environment-manipulation style of puzzle design from the Tomb Raider games. These make for breakups between levels that really lend purpose to your Metroidvania force powers, but rarely are they all that interesting or challenging to solve. None that I saw appeared to be optional, meaning that the team were limited by their requirement not to make the critical path too taxing (cause you know, games journalists have to beat it afterall) and that resulted in a slew of somewhat uninteresting puzzles. And yet I will say that only a couple were actively frustrating, and those were because of my personal misunderstanding of what the game was asking me to do. (and the hint system being effectively worthless) So a bit of miss on the puzzle system.

But now we go onto the big one, the bosses; that which gives a Souls-like game it's chest hair, and the offering for this title is- honestly disappointingly lacking. Each world has a world boss which is just a slightly stronger version of the mini-boss enemies you'll have fought throughout the game anyway, and the critical path only has three complete boss fights in it. (There are a few mini-boss fights that end prematurely; but for complete fight-to-the-death boss duels there are only three) Of those three, however, I will say that the three were all of my favourite Souls kind (Humanoid duels) and were well designed and conceived. (Even if they all commit the carnal sin of giving their bosses an unblockable ground pound AOE move. The final boss even pulls off said move in literal intimate proximity to you; just the cheapest of moves possible.) 

Oddly, the best boss fight isn't even the finale, but rather the first proper Boss fight about midway through the game. The final encounter is really static with only two stages to it that are similar enough that you don't really need to change any winning tactic you made for the start of the fight. The first boss fight, however, has three distinct stages, changes itself up significantly as you go, and feels both dynamic and taxing the whole way through. I remember beating that fight after around my 40th attempt and feeling just buzzing about the potential for the rest of the game. "If the first total boss fight was that good; what else am I in for?" Only for the other two fights to be either on par or lesser. (I actually think the finale was the weakest) It's not like I was expecting some sort of 'Soul of Cinder' style finale, drenched in significance and personally charged, as I literally fight my own various move sets in match-up to the death; but a little more dynamism to the fights would have worked wonders. Still all decent quality duels, though, don't get me wrong.

And last I come to narrative, a rather odd order of things for my blog, but I feel it reflects the intention of the game itself. They want to get people through the doors based on the gameplay, not the story; heck, that's how I ended up interested in the game myself. The story was bound to play second fiddle, but does that mean the narrative itself was half-assed? No, actually, I think that Respawn did a decent job. Cal Kestis' journey aboard the Mantis were very engaging and fun, and filled with a lot more personal drive than I expected. That being said, I still found the characters and their motivations to be a little cookie cutter and a bit bland. Cal is a survivor Padawan from the Purges, and acts exactly as you'd expect one in that position to: inexperienced, hope-driven and usually stoically amiable. Cere is the failed Jedi Master who lost her Padawan, so she's cynical, (but not too cynical. Honestly, she's a bit of dreamer as well) darker, a little beaten. (She's said to be 'broken', but the story makes no effort to really show that) and Greez is- well he's comic relief. (And pretty average comic relief at that)

They're not bad, by any stretch of the imagination, and they all fit neatly into the roles they were designed to play. They just lack that special little something which makes them real breathing characters that you want to route for and remember. They're about on par with the recent Disney Star Wars characters, if a little more fleshed out; and that means the emotional moments, which they all have, fail to really break the skin. (Kudos for trying, though) There is a huge highlight, however, and those are the flashback/forward scenes that Cal undergoes as he reconnects with the force, telling you the story of Order 66 from his point of view. These were great, and if the characters themselves had a little more meat to their bones I could see myself being genuinely effected by the grittiness of experiencing these people being brutally hunted down. (it was much more visceral than I'd ever imagined it being before; genuine congrats on whoever directed these scenes.) The ending is obvious sequel bait and I can see some out there feeling that the story sort of invalidated itself in the final moments, but I feel that (through the strength of those aforementioned flash scenes) the narrative just about justifies and redeems itself, and sets the characters up for what I can only imagine will be a kickass sequel. With everyone properly set up like they have been, the only place for them to go in the next title will be into real character-trial heights, and I think this cast both have the potential to pull that off and the willingness to go there. (This is just the beginning, and it shows.)

Ultimately, I started off acutely aware that Jedi Fallen Order was a good game, but around about the halfway mark I came to realisation that I was underselling it; this really is a great title. Great combat, wrapped around solid exploration, peppered with the odd truly gorgeous setpiece and strung along by a decent narrative. However, I feel that a lot of it's shortcoming just come from not committing enough in a few key areas. (which is why I hold a lot of hope for a sequel being an absolute showstopper) The bosses were either too few or lacklustre, the characters were just interesting enough to exist, but not unique enough to be memorable, and the overall story doesn't really achieve anything for the world of Star Wars. It's a game that proves Single Player EA games can exist, and that they need more room to take chances. With that said, I feel pretty comfortable giving Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order a Grade of B+, indicating a title just a hair's breadth away from true brilliance. Respawn are no slouches, and I just know that the oodles of potential this game lays out will not go to waste in the next title; it's just a shame we have to wait until then for the game this one could have been. Still, an absolute recommend for anyone out there who loves Star Wars or is simply into Soul-likes, because this is easily close enough to a Souls game to scratch that itch. Dear EA; commission more games like this one, please.

Order Fallen Jedi

My titles are just so creative, I know.

I don't know what it is about this title that keeps pulling me back. Okay that's not true, I know it's the impending hype for the Mandalorian that has sling shot this game into my eyeline. Perhaps I should just make an exception and decide to take an in-depth look at The Mandalorian instead, but that would open myself up to the world of TV blog content and I'm just not ready to open the floodgate right now. (Or ever.) So instead of taking an extensive gander at the incredibly exciting-looking Dave Filoni live action Star Wars series, I'm settling for a generic-looking action game from a publisher I hate and a studio that's getting there. (Is this masochism?)

With that being said, I will admit that even in their heyday, a majority of Star Wars games were hum drum outings who's only selling point was providing players a 'in' to the 'galaxy far far away'. Heck, some of these games were even plain bad and I still harbour found memories of them. Star Wars Republic Commando was a simple 'tactical' FPS, 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars- Republic Heroes' was... a chore, 'Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing' was a dull kart racer clone with the 'big heads' cheat permanently enabled. All of these titles would have crashed and burned if it wasn't for that 'Star Wars' connection, so could the same happen for 'Jedi: Fallen Order'? Likely, I'd say. Almost certainly. But that doesn't mean the necessarily game deserves it.

Today I will be looking through the launch trailer for this title and taking a look at what there is to be excited for in this game from a story perspective, if not a gameplay one. Oh and just a head's up, I'm actually not all that up-to-date on Dave Filoni's contribution to the Star Wars lore (Which this game seems to be drawing heavily from) so I may miss a few things that would be obvious to the casual superfan. (It's been a LONG time since I've considered myself a Star Wars superfan.) Also, this trailer appears to have fashioned itself as an 'accolades trailer', which I find slightly hilarious given that I don't believe review copies have even been shipped yet. (Gotta play that game as soon as you can, I guess.)

The trailer opens with a shot of another main villain who will be hunting the protagonist, Cal Kestis, throughout the majority of his story. We have another Sith inquisitor (That is, a Sith-trained force user who has attained the rank of Imperial inquisitor rather than those who have the rank of Sith Inquisitor. Because those are two completely different things. Star Wars lore, everybody!) although this is one who's name I can't quite pin down. All we know for now is that is he will be joining the Seventh Sister in the hunt, and this has lead me to develop a new speculation regarding how I expect this game to play out. We have been introduced to the existence of two main saber-wielding villains to hunt the protagonist, and that seems rather odd to my observing eye. Afterall, in storytelling isn't the magic number 3? Now of course, I have no concrete information to back up my hunch here, but the fact that we have been extensively shown off two badguys for this game could be indicative of the fact that there is a bigger threat behind the shadows. This is further backed up by a fact that I totally forgot in my last blog, when I commended the team for reintroducing the Seventh Sister because she was a threat that Cal could theoretically defeat. Namely, that the Seventh Sister is actually (spoilers) killed by Darth Maul in 'Star Wars: Rebels'.

Does that mean Respawn intend to pit us against a main villain who the protagonist will merely reach a stalemate with instead of killing? No, I can't imagine that being the case, it just wouldn't match the 'becoming a knight' angle that the team appear to be heading for with this story. Judging from the presented footage from these last two trailers, it is clear that they want to set up Cal's seclusive hideaway being interrupted by a Sith house call; one made by the Seventh Sister herself. Cal then goes to learn the arts and ways of the force and probably ends up joining the Rebellion in some small capacity, but how will the adventure be capped off by the end? I can't see EA going out of their way to fund a sequel before this first game is out, this game is very much an experiment on their part to see if traditional games can still be profitable, so the Respawn writers will be constructing a self contained story with this game. With that in mind, there must be foe for Cal to best in order to symbolize his reaching of mastery over the force. If it cannot be the Seventh Sister, and this other Inquisitor looks to be more of a throwaway lackey, then who could the big bad be? I dunno.

From there the trailer goes into the usual spiel, with narration setting up the world in which this game is set. For those who forgot, this game takes place after Order 66 has wiped out the majority of the Jedi and sent the rest into hiding. Cal Kestis was still just a Padawan when all this went into effect, and so he was able to stay under the radar and escape to a small outer rim planet in the middle of no where. Seeing as how this game takes place in the 'dark period' of time between the Prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, Respawn practically have free reign to say whatever they want about the state of the universe as long as it flies with Disney. However, instead of using this freedom to show as a spate of new and interesting worlds that we've never seen before, instead we run the gambit of familiar Star Wars locales. You have the middle-of-nowhere world which looks like a scrap heap (Just like Tatooine and Jakku), The icy planet with snow everywhere (Just like Hoth), and a jungle world full of hulking furry monsters (Just like... wait, no. This one is actually just Kashyyyk).

Now the trailer gives us a good look of Cal's journey as his ex-Jedi mentor, Cere, guides him through some old abandoned Jedi Temples. (You know, at this point I'm starting to wonder if the Jedi temples were ever actually manned. I mean, the only one's we've ever seen operational have been the ones on Coursant and Dantooine. Maybe the Jedi were just huge architectural nuts who kept building more bases then they could feasibly fill.) The stand out moment here for me was when Cal came face to face with a Mirialan. (Which was a hologram, I presume.) It stuck out as the Seventh Sister is famously also a Mirialan, which implies to me that Cal may end up digging into the past of his enemy and finding out that she used to be a Jedi. (Such a practise was common in The Old Republic, hence why they used the term Sith and Dark Jedi almost interchangeably back then.) Perhaps Vader saw fit to enlist traitor Jedi to hunt down their former compatriots. It would certainly support the real-world parallels that the Empire already draws to a certain movement whom I'm sure I don't need to explicitly introduce to the reader.

The last thing that I want to bring up in this trailer is something that is showcased throughout and which genuinely does excite me; the exploration. Previously we have seen a worldmap that the player can access within their ship that seems to allow for you to take-off and fly anywhere you want to. (Not sure if such an ability might rob some situations of their urgency, but I like the freedom nonetheless.) This subtle suggestion implies to me that we may be getting a game with a decently sized play spaces (maybe akin to the hub areas in the Crystal Dynamic Tomb Raider games) or even just a steady spate of side quests. If my hunch is true then this could be an interesting path that Respawn intend to walk by creating an action adventure game with areas that one is intended to plough thoroughly for secrets. Such a model would place them up against the likes of the Arkham Series. (A comparison that is given even more weight when considering the similarities in combat.) Could Respawn learn from these other games when forming their world to ensure that it is just as explorable? Sure. Will they? Once again, I haven't the foggiest.

When I say that this game doesn't excite me, it's not with the same trepidation that I claimed the same about 'The Outer Worlds'. (Still enjoying that game, by the by.) I'm not torn about whether or not the game will be quality, in fact I'm fairly convinced that this be a solidly average game, I'm more disappointed with a story that appears to be very 'paint by numbers'. Visually, the product looks great, audio-wise, it sounds like Star Wars, but everything else about the game screams 'one and done', and I feel like a Star Wars game could be much more. Admittedly, these concerns are more of a gut feeling, but I don't think that the first single player Star Wars game of the late 2010's is going to 'wow' the gaming world, when it really should and needs to. I suppose at the end of the day my biggest take away is; The Mandalorian sure looks fantastic, huh!

Fallen Jedi Order

Whaddya mean they blew up the Death Star?

Much in the vein of my Avengers revisit, I'm going to get a chance to reassess my opinion 'Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order' due to a final trailer put out recently. (I won't change my opinion on the name however. It's plain awful.) True, there has been another trailer between my first blog and now, but it was mostly uneventful and full of footage we were already familiar with. What we have now is more of a story based affair and gives us a clue of what we can expect when from the narrative side of things. (So I'll put my combat concerns aside for now.)

The trailer actually starts off with a shot that perfectly sums up the driving force for the story. The pursed Padawan; Cal Kestis, willingly puts his life in the hands of former Jedi: Cere, and comic relief mini alien Greez. All in an effort to escape the claws of the intimidating Sith Inquisitor known as the Seventh Sister. It's an interesting mash-up of things we've seen done a million times over, with the party set-up, and cool lore bits that were introduced in the only Star Wars properties that aren't crap nowadays, The Dave Filoni series'.

I am encouraged that the story appears to be setting Cal up against this fellow force user. In the days following order 66, which just happens to be when this game is set, it is difficult to find worthy foils to a Jedi-lead due to the apparent lack of other significant former Jedi, with the obvious exception of ol' Darth himself. Previous games that have tried to pull of setting a story in this time, like the game that gets a lot of hate nowadays for some reason 'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed', had to create a whole new storyline that was haphazardly jammed into the events of the canon. I mean, I understand the desire to insert your story into the main canon, but literally having Starkiller sacrifice his life to jump start the Rebellion is a little bit self-aggrandizing. (This is why Disney erased the timeline, guys.)

By pitting the protagonist against one of the, newly introduced, Sith inquisitors, you pit him against a foe he can theoretically beat which immediately lends some agency and tension to your key story moments. (Somehow I didn't feel too invested in 'Force Unleashed' when Starkiller went toe-to-toe with the Emperor. Something told me that the old guy would be fine.) Whether that means that the Mirialan will make a good foe for Cal, is another issue entirely. That all comes down to the strength of the writing and characterization; something that Star Wars has been pretty trash at for the past few years. Personally, I won't be expecting anything great. I'm not saying that there can't be any brilliant stories in the Star Wars universe, just that one would need to take risks in order to achieve them, and this game doesn't exactly scream 'risky' to me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The trailer than moves on to show Cere introducing Cal to an old rundown Jedi temple and walking him through the ways of the force through some kinetic platforming that just screams 'Frostbite engine' for me. (Don't be fooled by how fluid the movement is, guys, it only looks that good in 4K.) There is one bit of this trailer that both intrigues and confuses me here. Cere remarks "I know you don't trust me", to establish some degree of offish-ness between her and Cal, and I just can't put my finger on why. This isn't the first time that this idea has been broached either, interviewee's have implied a similarly rocky relationship between the student and his teacher, and something just isn't clicking for me.

Why have the Padawan mistrust the Master who is going to guide him along his path to becoming competent? Isn't this just going to make the moment of her death all that more emotionless when you spend the whole time being reminded how you don't trust her. (And if you don't think that she is going to die then you clearly haven't seen the track record for black people in the Star Wars Universe...) I'm not sure if this is their attempt to 'subvert expectations' and deliver an a-typical 'becoming who you're meant to be' story, but I doubt in the writers' ability to make the most out of it. Plus, we've already had an 'untrustworthy tutor' example in the Star Wars universe.

Who remembers Kreia for 'Knights of the Old Republic 2'. Say what you will about the repressively linear structure of that game, the writing was absolutely top notch. There we got a master who, it is revealed very early on, has heavy ties to the Sith presence, and it clear that her teaming with you is more out of necessity than any desire to help raise you. The writers have mentioned how they did this in order to play on the 'wise mentor' stereotype that we saw in characters like Yoda and Obi-Wan, and to provide a twist upon the story that was as good as the moment in Knights of the Old Republic 1 when it is revealed that >redacted for being one of the greatest twists in Video game history<. I think that Respawn believe that they're treading new ground with this story device but in truth they're just follow in the wake of giants and trying to fill-in their treads. I know that there are some competent storytellers over at Respawn, they've proven themselves a couple of times, but I can't see Respawn's guys comparing to Bioware from their distant heyday.

From here the trailer starts to do the classic "You can't save them" line that is read infinitely better in the Doom Eternal trailer. (Okay, in that trailer the line was more along the lines of "They are no longer your people to save." But that honestly just makes it even more badass.) This is all accompanied with a highlight reels of Cal pulling off various heroic feats (If you consider murder heroic) and little snippets of his foes for good measure. We see some more inquisitors, Trico from the Last Guardian and- wait are those... They are! Deathtroopers once again!

Out of all the new bits of Star Wars lore that has been added on in these recent movies (The origin of Han Solo's name being by far the worst) the one snippet that I can't get enough of, is the Deathtroopers. They look so cool, they're mysterious and huge and you never hear their voice. They first showed up in 'Rogue One' as Director Krennic's personal guard but have since gone on to show up in 'Star Wars: Battlefront 2' as a special unit, but are even due to make an appearance in 'The Mandalorian' later this month. Them being here makes me giddy in ways I cannot accurately express through words, but rest assured I'm currently frothing at the mouth like a schoolgirl. (Schoolgirls do that, right?)

Overall, consider me agnostic towards 'Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order'. I will most definitely play it, but it won't be at launch and it will be second hand. (When I vowed that Respawn would never see my money, I meant it.) The game looks like it could be something interesting for the content-starved Star Wars gaming fans out there, but I doubt it'll hold a candle to the classics that we know and love so dear. Perhaps if the game were given a more unique premise or a character creation system, there would be something to get excited about, but as it is I'm little more than mildly intrigued. I guess I'll find out if I'm wrong on this title and it's an instant classic, but somehow I doubt that'll be the case.

How not to deal with a backlash. Starring: Respawn

Why are you all booing, I'm right!

Yesterday I penned a blog in which I went over the recent controversy that was raging across the fanbase of Apex legends. At the time is was all; extortionate price points, greedy tactics and empty apologies; but as bad as all that sounds, and it was bad, for my money it was the response from Respawn Entertainment that really caused the damage. Before I do get into this, I would like to let everyone know that I have great respect for developers, especially the Respawn team, they have delivered fantastic games for as long as I can remember and rarely receive the credit they deserve. I was happy to see them finally have a hit in Apex Legends and wish them all the best going forward; that being said, my respect does not blind me to ugly mistakes or deafen their honeyed words. Over 24 hours have transpired since the last development has been issued in this matter and so I think I'm clear to discuss it today.

For those who are unaware, Reddit is one of the most vocal Internet forums within which to discuss fandom. They call themselves the frontpage of the Internet, rather pretentiously, but given their relevance you could argue that the title is an apt one. This is because Reddit offers access to thousands communities on a platform that is, ideally, unbiased and without an agenda. Many casual fans (Or those with communication difficulties, like myself.) find it difficult to engage on official forums as they appear to be rife with overbearing reverence and rarely any critical thought or analysis. Therefore these people tend to head to neutral ground, like Reddit, in order to share their thoughts. (Unless you are a Star Citizen critic, in which case, no forum is safe for you.) Due to this, many community managers for companies know that Reddit is an important place to focus their attention to get an idea on what the community thinks, they may not be representative of the entire player base, but if your going to get unbiased feedback anywhere, it'll be there. Now that I'm done unintentionally belittling your Internet acumen, let me get into details.

As I mentioned before, the Apex Legends subreddit was in quiet the tizzy over the pricing of items in the Iron Crown event, and many were very hostile in their criticisms. Things died down for all of half an hour when Respawn proposed reparations but quickly flared up again once people realized that the studio had completely ignored the crux of their ire. Those who looked at the Reddit at that time could find a slew of posts urging compatriots to neither spend on the event nor let up on their criticism, believing that if they don't speak up then nothing will change. (Which is often the case with the additional caveat that: things usually get worse.) 

In all this fervour there were a few posts and comments that crossed the metaphorical line. Death threats and personal attacks are clearly undeserved and hyperbolic, but are also issued by those unfortunate individuals that most usually ignore in the community so as not to muddy the issues at hand. Clearly no one told this to the Respawn team.

During all of this discourse, comments started popping up from accounts belonging to a couple key members of staff; namely Executive producer, Drew McCoy and Community manager, Jay Frechette. Now, when developers of this calibre take to the discussion you could be forgiving in expecting some high tier damage control in the works, however that isn't what happened. Drew, who penned that apology that everyone tore into for being disingenuous, made several regrettable comments that did not help their case. Most notably would be the message in which he expressed. "I've been in the industry long enough to remember when players weren't complete ass-hats to developers and it was pretty neat. I forged a bunch of long lasting relationships from back then. Would be awesome to get back there, and not engaging with toxic people or asking 'how high' when a mob screams 'jump' is hopefully a start."

 Now, disregarding the way in which this comment completely ignores the issues at play by simply labelling the backlash 'Mob mentality', (Because customers are too stupid to be disgusted on their own.) I do believe that Drew had aimed this comment more at those unfortunate individuals I mentioned earlier than at the majority of folks. The problem is that, since those people go ignored by the majority, all anyone saw was the comment that Drew made which, contextless, reads as tone deaf and pretty awful.

This tone persists throughout the responses with Drew making seemingly asinine comments in response to posts that get lost in the horde. He also went onto to calling someone a "Dick" (Who left a pretty passionate, if profanity laden, paragraph), then boasted about how he only read the first sentence of that message and the last, not unlike how a highschooler would. Jay came to Drew's defence by issuing nothing but pure sarcasm, enraging the community that he is professionally obligated to manage.

This all looks pretty damning for Respawn's part, but I will come to their defence in that I can understand where this is coming from. This team have worked so hard to create Apex and they care intensely about everything they do; so when they start to see their own community descend upon them and start ruthlessly admonishing their direction, it's difficult from them not to take it personally. Unfortunately, it doesn't help that the actions the Jay and Drew were standing up for are frankly indefensible. You can publish all the apologies and denials that you want, but actions speak so much louder than words, and Respawn still are yet to act.

There have been a few that have come to the defense of these practises, including some influencers (A few of whom are financially tied to the lootbox community.) The arguments generally follow the same lines; "the game is free, be grateful!" or "These prices aren't for you, they're for big spenders." Drew shared similar statements when he claimed that their these price points don't affect the majority of community, uttering the much-memed words "Most of ya'll are freeloaders, and we love that!" I find that discourse in this issue tends to get derailed so I want to express my opinions on that particular matter.

Before I do, however, I would like to address the controversy behind Drew calling the fans "Freeloaders." Reddit exploded at this comment, accusing him of belittling the fanbase for not ponying up, but I have to say, this is the point where I get off the outrage train. Given the context I just shared, you can clearly see that he awards the title in a joking, irreverent way; to call this an attack on the community is frankly absurd. The man made a joke, some could argue it to be in poor taste given the backlash, but that doesn't make you right to take his words and run with them. If anyone wants to convey a message of stern disapproval over Apex's pricing structure it is imperative that they don't get distracted from the issue with silly tangents like the "Freeloaders" comment. Besides, that doesn't even touch on what is truly wrong with this message.

You see, Drew and these influencers seem to operate on the assumption that just because these heavy price points are not forced upon the general community, that makes them harmless; whereas I would argue that this is not the case. Firstly, I'm not sure when it became acceptable to ignore the ill effect something might incur just because it's more likely to harm someone other than yourself. Sure I'm not the most empathetic individual in the world, but I still can't stomach it when I hear stories of people financially crippling themselves from microtransaction's and addiction or children flushing their parents money on lootboxes. (Like I covered a few weeks back.) I'm not sure how Drew or those YouTubers can stomach it either.

Then there is the assumption that these actions do not affect the wider audience. But they do. Because of a little word called: Precedent. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was one of the earliest games to overload their digital marketplace with micro-DLC for a negligible price. No one realized what this system was and thus didn't push back against it. COD raked in huge swaths of money and now we have microtransactions in every game. Same thing with Season Passes, Lootboxes, Timed offers, timewalls/paywalls and Sequel-itis. It takes an outright rejection from the consumers (Like with Battlefront 2's lootboxes) to affect lasting change.

After all of this chaos erupted, CEO of Respawn, Vince Zampella, issued an apology on behalf of his developers. Whilst he claimed that he would always stand up for their right to push back against abuse, he acknowledged that a few of them crossed that ol' proverbial line and promised that communication would be more respectful in the future.  The sentiment was nice, but the seeds of discontent have already been sown into the community and sown deep. If people were upset with Respawn before, they still stuck up for the company because most just assumed "Hey, it's probably an initiative from EA. They're hands are likely tied." After this response, however, the community are downright mistrusting of Respawn, now they understand that this ugly monetisation scheme represents the vision that the studio have for the game going forward.

This situation reminds of similar debacles between developers and consumers such as No Man's Sky, Anthem and Fallout 76. They all underwent similar backlashes and found that when attempts were made to quell the storm, no one listened. Ultimately, this may be a response to the way how the gaming community have grown mostly immune to corporate speak in recent years. It has been abused by companies (Who shall remain nameless) so frequently that now it actively enrages people to hear such canned platitudes. It was only when the teams behind games like NMS and Fallout 76 started to prove their sentiments through actions that people actually started to listen to them. (Anthem is still working on that part.)

Recently, Shaun Murray (CEO of Hello Games, creators of No Man's Sky) shared his opinion on what game's companies can do in the midst of controversy. He claimed that the best choice is to go radio silent, because otherwise you only serve to make things worse. Some would disagree and say that this is the way you make people assume that you've abandoned the project and moved on. I find this particular back and forth fascinating as it delves in psychology and the relationship between the artist and the consumer. So many factors go into both sides of the argument that you could literally hold this debate for hours. One thing all sides can agree on, however, is that whatever you do, don't respond like how Respawn did.